Posted in: CW, Preview, Riverdale, TV | Tagged: cw, episode 5, preview, riverdale, rivervale, Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa, Season 6

Riverdale Season 6: Aguirre-Sacasa Says "Death Is Definitely Coming"

So this week brings the fifth and final chapter of the "Rivervale" saga, as The CW's Riverdale gets ready to reveal the secret behind what's been going on over the past four episodes (something about that comic book collection earlier… hmmm…). But "Chapter One Hundred: The Jughead Paradox" also has another responsibility on its hands: to properly celebrate the show's 100th episode. So how do you juggle going supernaturally dark while being lighthearted enough to properly respect the show's milestone? If you're series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, you and your team find the right mix and move some of your plans to later in the season.

Speaking with Variety, Aguirre-Sacasa explained how the tone of the episode changed once the team realized it would be the show's 100th. "As soon as we realized that our fifth episode [of the Rivervale arc] would land with our 100th episode, we thought, 'OK, maybe we'll do something that's a little bit more meta and a little more a celebration, as opposed to a really dark episode,' which is what we originally thought was going to happen," he explained. "We wanted to celebrate not just the show and where the show began, how far the show's gone, but we wanted to do a love letter to Archie Comics and the source material." And don't think for a second that just because the final episode of the five-chapter series event won't be as Hammer House of Horror as the previous four that horror won't be finding its way from Rivervale to Riverdale. "The big horror story that we were planning to do for the fifth episode that we shifted once we realized it was our 100th episode, we are still doing that story, but it's going to be in Riverdale," he explained. "Death is definitely coming to Riverdale, and it is definitely permanent."

Riverdale Season 6 Episode 5 "Chapter One Hundred: The Jughead Paradox": 100th EPISODE — Unnerved by a series of strange happenings around him, Jughead's (Cole Sprouse) quest for answers leads him to uncover the truth about Rivervale. KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes, Madelaine Petsch, Mädchen Amick, Casey Cott, Vanessa Morgan, Charles Melton, Erinn Westbrook and Drew Ray Tanner also star. Gabriel Correa directed the episode written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.

The sixth season of RIVERDALE begins with a special five-episode event arc entitled "RIVERVALE." Picking up where season five ended, with Archie (KJ Apa) and Betty (Lili Reinhart) deciding to give their romantic relationship another shot, just as a bomb planted by Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos) under Archie's bed was about to go off. Strangely, that bomb seemingly doesn't explode, and when Archie and Betty wake up the next morning, they're living in the town of Rivervale, their lives in Riverdale but a distant dream. It's hard to believe, but things in Rivervale are much darker and creepier than in Riverdale. There are ghosts, curses, witches, demons, human sacrifices, and special guest stars galore — including a visit from everybody's favorite twenty-something witch, Sabrina Spellman (guest star Kiernan Shipka)! How did our characters come to be in Rivervale? And what, exactly, is Rivervale? An alternate universe? A dream dimension? Limbo? Archie's coma fantasy? The mystery will be revealed in RIVERDALE's hundredth episode, "The Jughead Paradox."

Riverdale stars KJ Apa as Archie Andrews, Lili Reinhart as Betty Cooper, Camila Mendes as Veronica Lodge, Cole Sprouse as Jughead Jones, Madelaine Petsch as Cheryl Blossom, Mächen Amick as Alice Cooper, Casey Cott as Kevin Keller, Charles Melton as Reggie Mantle, Vanessa Morgan as Toni Topaz, Erinn Westbrook as Tabitha Tate, and Drew Ray Tanner as Fangs Fogarty. Based on the characters from Archie Comics, Riverdale is from Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios, with executive producers Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Supergirl, Glee), Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl), Sarah Schechter (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl) and Jon Goldwater (Archie Comics Publisher & CEO).

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